Fabulous Fictober
by Old Emerald Eye
Summary: 31 ficlets for 31 days of Fictober, Supergirl style. Multiple pairings.
1. Gen - Ask My Opinion (Please) Tell Me To

**Title**: Ask My Opinion (Please) Tell Me To Lie

**Prompt:** Poisonous

Kara tries cooking for her new family. Alex learns what it means to be an older sister.

* * *

Alex has eaten food at least ... 0.96 per cent of the days in her life, give or take some very important scientific experiments that lasted longer than she honestly thought they would. Who knew marshmallows have no natural predators?

It tends to appear on the table in front of her on a semi-regular basis, so she knows what the stuff looks like.

The thing on display on the table looked, to Alex's discerning and well practiced eye, like the after effects of a volcanic eruption.

What it did _not_ look like was food, despite the - _Fancy! Old! Family!_ – china plates it was presented on. Resigning herself to the futility of pointing out the lack of edibility for mere humans, she tunes herself back into the conversation. Kara's regaling them with her creative process, and her mom more than makes up her lack of attention.

"Humans are carbon based, so I selected a nutrient preparation to maximise necessary components."

Ugh. Kara's so proud of herself she's bouncing. Without cracking the floor this time. And, honestly, this is the happiest she's been since her cousin dumped her on their doorstep, which means …

Well … charcoal's not bad for humans. She thinks. It's some sort of beauty supplement, right…? Right. So a - no, two mouthfuls, two is better, she can do that, and then drop the 'can't eat too much before surfing' line that she's perfected by years of actually wanting to go surf and hightail it as far into the ocean as she can get before throwing up.

Foolproof.


	2. JessPam - Two People Sitting

**Title:** Two people sitting doing nothing

**Prompt:** Tranquil

**Pairing:** Jess the Secretary/Pam from HR

Sometimes, all that's needed is a little bit of quiet.

* * *

In the corner, a clock ticks quietly, unobserved and disregarded by the room's occupants. The gears shift regularly, precisely on time, neither fast nor slow. Every time the third hand complete sixty increments, the second hand advances once. The first hand moves infinitesimally, at its own regular pace.

From two hands, ink stretches words across the surface of paper. Pause as pages are softly turned. Pens resume their smooth movement.

There is a distinct lack of gunfire, explosions, or anything of the sort that generates paperwork by the desk-load.

Jess pours a cup of tea, slides it across the table. Pam slides the form for beverages right back at her, date and location prefilled.


	3. Gen - (Un) Compromising

**Title:** (Un) compromising

**Prompt:** Roasted

The first time Lucy saw Cat Grant, she was in the process of flaying a man alive on National Television.

* * *

The first time Lucy saw Cat Grant, it was in a televised interview with a politician whose name Lucy forgot almost as soon as he finished introducing himself, an interview that later came to define the start of Cat's career. She hadn't been watching ten minutes before she decided that she wanted to be just like her. She never dared not do well in English, but it quickly became her most worked on subject even if she never really got the appeal of the journalism club.

Then Lois became a reporter, and her father didn't like that at all, and Lois cut off all contact with their father and Lucy along with him, and then her father was all she had left, so she knew she couldn't do that.

But she still wanted to be _something,_ all the same.

So Lucy joined the army, because what else was she going to do, and she became a lawyer, because nothing was going to stop her from achieving at least some part of her childhood dreams and she learns that she can twist words until they're thin and sharp and shiny. She goes to war, and she learns that there's always use for another weapon in her arsenal.

None of it prepares her for arriving in National City looking for her boyfriend only to be showered with compliments and offered a job by the Cat Grant, within a literal minute of meeting her.

And all she needed to do was conduct a quiet, questionably legal investigation.

To think of all the years she wasted when all she needed was to skirt the rules a little. She was all to versed in the risks of that to try– she still doesn't dare make contact with Kane – but the rewards, the rewards, now those are worth far more than she's ever allowed herself to contemplate.


	4. AlexLucy - Dream of Me (Just Can't Get

**Title:** Dream of Me (I Just Can't Get Enough)

**Prompt:** Spell

**Pairing:** Lucy/Alex

Alex, on a motorcycle, has one hell of an affect. Lucy is far from immune.

* * *

Lucy is _aware_ of the fact that she is standing at a crime scene, one that involves a blacker-than-black ops organization, the government _and_ aliens, and is connected to her father at that. Her involvement with the scene in question – both as accessory to potentially unlawful kidnapping, detention and human dissection, on the one hand, and a primary participant of breaking said suspects straight back out of custody, on the other – also has some bearing on the situation that should really be kept in mind.

She is also aware, somewhere that isn't currently very occupied, thank you very much, that she should be minimising the signs of her presence, because this a crime scene, however legally or morally grey the orders that make it so. She is aware of these things, but Danvers is _right there_, straddling _her_ bike, and she's pretty sure that light hadn't been behind _her_ when she came in, and she may be thin enough to use as zipties but she's got muscle, enough to up back the impressive capture count attached to her file, what Lucy wouldn't give to have those legs wrapped around –

"Time to go."

"Wh-?"

And now she's flying.


	5. AlexReign - Sugar Honey

**Title:** Sugar Honey

**Prompt:** Chicken

**Pairing:** Alex/Reign

Reign is a Worldkiller. She is created, trained, bread to be perfection incarnate. Therefore she is the best at everything she does, including feelings. Obviously.

* * *

Humans are, as a rule, simple and easy to understand. She has only to show the righteous their sins, punish the guilty, and the division between the two camps soon becomes clear. The guilty continue their crimes, and reap the storm that Reign so thoughtfully provides as a consequence. The innocent do not commit crime, and are left to continue their lives in peace while Reign turns her attention to those most in need of it. They do not concern her, and she does not concern them. Her system, and no doubt the system of those like her, is as simple as it is effective.

It is a simple system that she enforces, and flawless, were it not for the one persistent exception.

The exception to order, and reason, the way the world should work and the way Reign should work her will upon the world is an anomaly. Anomalies should not exist, or should be purged to allow a return to the correct path, and yet. And yet.

And yet, Reign does not act against the anomaly. In their encounters, she only does as much as is necessary to complete her tasks despite the repeated, if futile, attempts at interference. She does not linger. Any lassitude in action is an attempt to reduce the effect of her presence on the subpar materials humans choose to construct from.

The anomaly is a human, a resident of the city Reign has claimed as her own, and one who does not sin – her occupation, for all that she has none of Reign's strengths, is similar to Reign's own path, by choice rather than design - but she continuously resists Reign's efforts to bring order, seeks her out only to tell her that _she_ is the one in the wrong for bringing peace, and _constantly_ throws herself into the path of danger without regard for her own fragility. Reign is uncertain why that trait in particular bothers her so much. Given the disruptive influence she has, she should consider it fitting that her flame burns itself out despite Reign's own restraint.

Yes, their frequent interaction has resulted in a degree of familiarity, and yes she has through ingenuity and bold action managed to temporarily incapacitate a Worldkiller, and yes her tenacity is admirable for such a fragile species, but she is one of millions, _billions_ of humans. Whatever her idiocrancies, she should know better. Reign does not require assistance, nor does she welcome advice, a fact the human refuses to accept even after explanation is made.

* * *

Reign is a Worldkiller, the first of her kind this planet has seen. She is a juggernaut of justice, a relentless reminder of what it is to be held to a higher standard, an unyielding unifier under whose banner humanity will prosper. She does not get bored, or lonely, or anything that requires _companionship_ to alleviate_._ Even if she could feel those things, there is far too much crime for her to have time to spare for them.

Case in point, she locates and enters a housing unit in the midst of a residential compound to break up a gambling ring. Though they may hide, they -

She rises from the remains of the window only to find her - to find the human staring her down over a single piece of edible fowl. It's breaded. Spiced. Worldkillers do not hunger.

The human does not sin. The human is clearly standing in a residence currently being used to conduct unlawful activities. Taken at face value, the two facts are mutually exclusive. A combination of the two does not compute. One cannot sin without sinning. Therefore, her anomaly cannot be here. But she is.

Reign has a superior intellect, greater even than that of her creators. Obviously, her human must be infiltrating the group in order to bring about its destruction in accordance with the foibles of human law.

Her actions are no longer necessary, now that Reign has arrived, but her efforts are appreciated nonetheless, however small their impact relative to Reigns own. The matter settled, she turns her focus to the food still held aloft in the agent's hand. It is beginning to tear apart under its own weight.

"This does not contain adequate nutrition for an individual of your metabolic activity."

She returns it to the platter. It's the only movement in the room. The other inhabitants are appropriately frozen by Reign's presence.

"Fight. Me."

Her will to improve, despite inevitable, repeated failures is astounding. Even so, even for her, Reign will not pretend to be driven off as a pretext for the slow march of human justice to grasp at the shadow of success.

"You would lose."

But she would _try_, and wasn't that something? Almost like having an equal.


	6. CatKara - Brighter Than the Sun

**Title:** Brighter Than the Sun

**Prompt:** Drooling

**Pairing:** Cat/Kara

Cat can't help but notice how other people watch her assistant.

* * *

It's not that Cat _needs_ to be followed by her assistants all the time, far from it - she had, after all, cut her teeth as one of the Planet's finest investigative reporters, and that was the kind of job that having a bunch of incompetents trailing her like a brood of duckling would've gone over like a lead balloon. Or lead shoes, in some cases. It's usually just a lot more convenient, now that she's running things, to have someone at hand who's capable of taking notes and jotting down her ideas without being completely useless. She's a visionary, not someone who needs to be tied down with the endless minutia of details each of those visions require to exist. That's what she has assistants and whole departments staffed with theoretically competent workers for.

Even so, she only makes the mistake of bringing Kara onto the set of CatCo's ever popular cooking show exactly once. The minute they get within eyesight of the food, the girl pays absolutely no attention to anything she says. Oh, Cat has her coffee hot in hand alright, but Kara nearly drifts into the shot – not that they're shooting anything important, just the contestants practicing knife-work and mixing and a hundred other things that Cat knows the French for, and the cameras getting a little prep footage - on several occasions, and, worst of all, makes every single one of the contestants fall in love with her and her endless appetite for taste testing their concoctions and, by the look of it, loving every bite. Completely unacceptable. Kara is her assistant, not anyone else's.

Not that she's going to do anything with this newly discovered weakness for food, not when Kara's lasted so much longer than anticipated. Even the previous record holder only stayed three months before getting poached. Cat makes a mental note regardless, because that's what an investigative reporter _does_. She never knows when it'll come in useful. Perhaps a food column when she has no choice but to move her assistant on to greener pastures? Although she'll be damned if she lets the _Planet_ get her.

Cat may, possibly, allow her conversation with the producers to be drawn out, just so she can keep an eye on her assistant shovelling leftovers into her mouth like there's no tomorrow. It's honestly a bit concerning. The Heimlicks manoeuvre for children must operate on the same principle as the original, surely. Not that Cat would have to be the one to wrap her arms around her.

If they don't have trained first aid on hand, that's exposing CatCo to the threat of litigation, or worse, bad publicity, and while Cat does have lawyers, she isn't fond of wasting them on the mundane idiocies that should make no part of her empire. Kara really does prove useful sometimes.

Not that Cat would let her go that easily. She'd best stay close just in case.


	7. AlexMaggie - Dreams of Tomorrow

**Title:** Dreams of Tomorrow

**Prompt:** Exhausted

**Pairing:** Alex/Maggie

Sometimes, dreams require product testing. Sometimes the tests reveal unforeseen weaknesses in said dream-based plans.

* * *

Alexandra Danvers, PhD, MD, is an agent of the DEO. She has fought aliens and terrorists and government paperwork and government terrorists, some of whom were partially aliens, and her sister's pout and emerged unscathed. She can functionally operate in the air, underwater, and with three hands tied behind her back.

She finally makes it back to the shelter of safe territory and collapses.

"Let me die."

Maggie is utterly unsympathetic to her plight. Then again, Maggie had thought that she was crazy for suggesting it in the first place, so maybe, just maybe she had a reason.

"And get out of babysitting the twins again?"

Alex grumbles into the couch.

"That bad, huh." She gets nothing but another drawn out groan in reply. "Have you thought about starting smaller?"

Maggie isn't expecting her to. This is Dr Dr Special Agent Baby Gay Danvers, after all. The only things she does small are microorganisms and high-tech circuitry.

Alex manages to lift her head over the arm of the couch, like a seal sighting an approaching inflatable ball.

"Thought I wasn't supposed to touch your plants."

Maggie sets a cup of tea down near her hand and reaches over to pat her on the head once its down. Alex can get very ... focused, when she's distracted, and this is a new blend.

"Like a _cactus,_ Danvers."


	8. PamVaz - Work Done Well

**Title:** work done well

**Prompt:** Star

**Pairing:** Agent Susan Vasquez/Pam from HR

The power of positive reinforcement should not be underestimated. Or at least that's what Agent Vasquez hopes, because shouting has worked out _great_ so far for National City's infrastructure.

* * *

Vasquez has seen a lot of success over her career, success that followed her as she moved from active duty to a support role in an organization so blackbook most of the CIA hadn't heard of it. The siege of the last coffee machine standing at the old desert base, for one, went down in the annals of the DEO as a decisive victory. Keeping her actual, pre-Area 51 and all its assorted alien-flavoured craziness, career in the dark is another win in her books, especially when the five variants currently in circulation in the water-cooler rumor-mill and the cell block C betting pool that they persist in think she doesn't know about manage to make her look better than she already is. Underwater rock-climbing through the caves of a dormant vulcano does sound interesting, but she thinks she'll leave the trapped scientists for another day even if she does get the time to try it out.

In more … official endeavours, she's the first on call for riding herd on Danvers and the rest of the A-team, and she does it well.

None of her previous accomplishments are quite as tricky as being volunteered to head the initiative to reduce damage to the city's infrastructure that occurs pretty much every time they deploy. Officially, it's been kicked along from City Hall, via the byzantine paths of federal bureaucracy, in order to save the city budget, which it would help. _Technically_ ... and it'd also do wonders for paperwork, but really it's to cut down visits from Hebert, who just happens to control the Unions of National City in a nice, not at _all_ like the mob way. Which would probably be less scary if it _were_ sarcastic. Hebert likes the work they provide, but he's fond of the city's infrastructure more.

There have been previous attempts in that direction by various parties, but aliens are not made more likely to co-operate by threats of none too subtle punishments. Especially when the DEO has only just stopped tossing aliens in its cells for the crime of existing anyway. The particular subset who'd believed that everything understood English is you shouted loud enough - miraculously uneaten by lions - had their day too. Rather short, by a day nonetheless. Once Supergirl starts working with them that goes double. The only thing that causes more destruction than one semi-indestructible alien fighting is two of them, but Kara - it's hard not to know with the way the Director was Ms. Danvers-ing when they first brought her in (and the way Danvers herself almost drove half the retrieval team to taking sick leave just to get out of her cross-hairs when it turned out that the effects of kryptonite lingered) – improves their capabilities so much its allowable. Not to mention if she were cut loose she'd take a leaf out of her cousin's book and cut them out in turn. And things would still get blown up, bludgeoned, and freeze ray-ed to death.

After an afternoon of collaboration with the DEO's incident records in general and Pam in particular, Vazquez has a damage scale that doesn't – quite – go all the way up to an extinction level event, if only because if that does in fact happen she won't have to be around to deal with it. There are silver linings in all things, even if it doesn't seem like it when it's her dates that get caught in the crossfire.

After each engagement at the lower end of the scale, each of the personal involved get gold silver or bronze stickers, a certain amount of which equal pizza, on the government's buck. It's truly amazing how quickly Blue team discovers that there are ways of opening doors besides kicking them in. The way things are going, they may need to put in a request for more varied reward system. And someplace to put all the pizza boxes.

Kara tries, she really does, but with enemies of one shade or another throwing her around, and through, every other week, she misses out on the gold star more often than not. She seems quite pleased, regardless, when she's awarded the red sticker that for some reason goes as the alternate to bronze in National City's craft stores.

It's not like Supergirl has any trouble getting discount pizza. Not when she's the first on scene literally every time a food joint experiences trouble.


	9. AlexMaggie - Slide Down to the Sea

**Title:** Slide Down to the Sea

**Prompt:** Precious

**Pairing:** Alex/Maggie

Alex's approach to eating is a perfectly logical response to the years she spent living with an alien with a super metabolism. Maggie gets that. But Alex is no longer a child, and Maggie has no intention of continuing to compete to eat.

* * *

Alex Danvers, Maggie discovers, wouldn't know a slow meal if it tried to take her out with candlelight. (She has a slightly better chance of identifying it if it tried to take her out with a candlestick full stop, but that's just the effects of relevant life experience.)

Her eating is a learned behavior. Maggie only had to share a meal with Kara once to see that, but that doesn't make her any less attention grabbing to see. She's like a cuter, deadlier, better dressed Gollum when it comes to guarding and consuming her food.

It's a good thing she doesn't like Maggie's vegan stuff, or she'd never get anything to eat. Even so, there is only so long she can survive on soy alone before she has to take action.

The hand feeding experiment enacted at the end of the next movie-with-Kara night is a resounding success, especially when Alex blushes. Her tough as nails secret agent is adorable. And kinda really hot, when she catches at her fingers like that and nips.

_And_ Kara finds an excuse to run, and Maggie is left with an entire extra half of a pizza up for grabs when she gets round to it in her own good time. Life is good.


	10. LucyAlura - Let the Only Sound (be)

**Title:** let the only sound (be)

**Prompt:** Flowing

**Pairing:** Lucy/Alura

Clothes may make the man, but they can only serve to enhance Alura's appeal.

* * *

Lucy has never been involved in the process of designing clothing. A suite against a contractor who thought they could skim from their assigned budget and get away with supplying substandard materials, yes, and designing hours of creative punishment for the nameless individual responsible whenever she finds herself anywhere but indoors and air-conditioned while in her dress blues, sure, and she has even been (anonymously) known as the cause of it's artful destruction on a time or two, but the process of design, fabrication and actually putting clothing together is completely outside her zone.

Luckily, Kara has had to start put clothes together on the fly since her first time catching a plane – and has since stopped ripping her shirts, although that might not be entirely related - and knows where to point her, even if Winn has never created a dress before.

His lack of professional experience definitely doesn't show in the finished product conveyed into the office slash changing room in a fancied up cardboard box and out again on, objectively, the most beautiful woman on the planet. Alura looks, to Lucy's suddenly religious eyes, like an angel. Of judgement. The sort that doesn't need more than a look to kill someone. Certainly the sort of person that no one who question that's qualified to negotiate diplomatic immunity with the president.

(Astra, by contrast, has wholeheartedly embraced human clothing but still looks like a bat. Lucy blames Danvers Senior. Hanging from one of the support struts on the ceiling with a nerf gun doesn't help the image. She had been persuaded to get rid of her jumpsuit, but then encountered footage of Batman and decided leather was the way to go.

Alex tags her with a dart as she steps through the door to announce Air Force one has touched down.)


	11. KaraLena - Something Good

**Title:** Something Good

**Prompt:** Cruel

**Pairing:** Kara/Lena

Lena is a Luthor. Deception is her blood right. She's been remarkably forthright with it - it's a wonder they didn't see the betrayal coming.

* * *

Lena is a Luthor, by name and by blood and by rearing. Deceit and deception have been her tools since she was led into the vipers den when she was but four years old. It is fart of her, and she cannot, and will not hide it. It was foolish of them to forget it.

She springs her deadly betrayal on them at a family brunch that she, the resident millionaire of the group, has taking to providing on a tri-weekly basis.

Kara, desperate to escape her fate, tries pouting, to no effect. Lena has somehow immunised herself against her last line of defense.

Maggie, the traitor, is swayed by Lena's poisonous offering and dishes some onto Alex's plate as well as her own.

Astra incinerates the kale the second Lena's back is turned. Alex rewards her with a kiss. Kara throws her kale at them, and intercepts the returned tomato with her mouth.


	12. Gen - Parmaq Soj

**Title:** parmaq soj

**Prompt:** Guarded

Alex has a strange effect on Kryptonians, especially those of a formally world-conquering bent.

* * *

Over the last number of years, a number of things have changed in Alex's life. The first is that she's a lot harder to hit, as a result of constant practice and experience being shot at that she accumulates. The three aliens that have decided to attach themselves to her also help somewhat in that regard. Sam is still more a part of Lena's, and as a result Kara's circle, but Reign is on Alex like a cat on catnip. (When she isn't at CatCo making pronouncements and stealing Cat's skittles, that is, like a cat trying to alternately impress and annoy a different cat.) Kara has been at her side as long as she's been at hers, and Astra ... Astra seems to think that Alex stabbing her is nothing compared to Alex spending time with a Worldkiller. If Reign and Cat are cats, then she and Astra are tigers, fighting over Alex like she is a prize cut of meat. Or a cardboard box. They have similar enough notions of personal space for that.

The second is the lengths she has to go to in order to keep her food safe, often to no avail despite the numerous decoys, redundancies and lead shielding she designs, creates and employs to that effect. The regularity, and content, of her meals fluctuates worse than when she was doing her PhD. Either it's stolen, sometimes seconds from her mouth, or her flock decides that she's the one starving herself by hiding – and she isn't, she is _working_ \- in her lab and needs to be force fed into a food coma and taken home and cocooned and shown one of Astra's whale documentaries. The range of food they provide is nice, almost too nice at times. They never miss the Chicago truck she likes, or that ice-cream place in New York, or that one stall that only seems to open at the worst hours of the night. Unfortunately, Astra's teamed up with Maggie and Lena and all too often there's kale, or kelp, or a side portion of chard too.


	13. LucyAlura - Under(foot)wave

**Title:** under(foot)wave

**Prompt:** Whale

**Pairing:** Lucy/Alura

Alura, Lucy knows, would be Sam Lane's white whale.

* * *

Lucy shares her father's taste in literature – Ahab and his whale, Brutus and Cassius. He collected them, cared for them, carted them from post to post packed tightly into cardboard boxes, and she read the heavy paperback tombs over and over, so that they were almost enough to fill the empty hours in his office after school let her go and her homework gave out under her assault. Officers need culture, after all. He doesn't share her taste in the trashy paperbacks she starts collecting in her teens, and she very carefully arranges her life so that he never thinks to ask her about them. Especially their leads. A good half of them lost their covers anyway, between the store and her shelf.

Lucy is her father's child, and Lucy is a lawyer, so she knows the thrill and call of the hunt all too well.

She knows Alura would be her father's white whale, if he knew of her existence. It keeps her awake at night, longer than paperwork, or plans to upstage Danvers, or that one word that's been on the tip of her mental tongue for hours on end.

Alura is not a fighter, not like her sister, not like Supergirl, and Lucy wouldn't want her to be, not when she could be living, could be lively, looking after plants – Lucy hadn't even known onions could flower this time last year, and now she's got three of them growing on her windowsill, and two days ago Alura saw a bee – and occasionally dropping pronouncements on cases Lucy's working, could be slowly becoming more than the remnant of a dead world.

So, no matter how much the thought pains her, she has no choice but to buy the bottle of hair dye. Love will have its sacrifices, and hers is dating a nigh invulnerable blonde superhuman. Kara won't say anything, but Alex is going to be utterly insufferable.


	14. Gen - The Vimesian Principle of Noble

**Title:** The Vimesian Principle of Noble Floatation

**Prompt:** Clock

Some things happen, regular as clockwork. Alex would like some of them (like the transport service) to get their act together, and some of them to stop dead.

* * *

Despite the advances of alien technology and its impact, tangential or otherwise on the daily life of its citizens, there are still some laws of physics - not all, but some - operating in National City that stay the same no matter what else happens to be going on at any given moment.

Lord resurfaces from wherever he's been lurking in obscurity, much like other things that are said to float to the top. Not that anyone's asking her, but Alex would have preferred it if he'd stayed gone, instead of turning into a villain straight out of Gotham. She has a life, and a girlfriend she really likes spending time with. She doesn't have the time to spare for Lord's latest ego boost. Especially when he keeps flirting with her. She hadn't liked him when she'd thought she was straight, and she sure as hell didn't like him now.

For one thing, bombs seem to be his catch all go-to these days. It seems he's as easy in the company of hypocrisy as he is with slime, even if the steampunk theme is new. For the amount of damage he causes, there are amazingly few casualties. Besides people's eyeballs whenever he hacks the TV broadcast.

In the first few weeks after he returned - after she'd become used to his presence in the city, and made sure he wasn't abducting coma patients again, and stuck a few trackers on Kara - Alex had even, despite herself, been mildly supportive of the results of his last appearance, (not the monologuing) because a shitty fence across one of the more useful shortcuts between the park and food truck central was _not_ art no matter what kind of fancy words people used to describe it. The fact that she could vault it was immaterial when compared to the fact that she was forced to vault it or take a ten minute detour to get food that should've been two seconds away. Depending on the line, of course.

That was then, and this is now. Now, his aesthetics don't matter in the slightest (even if she is sneakily using Kara's new BFF to stop the city putting that damn fence back up) because she's going to make him pay. Not for - or not only for - illegal, not to mention immoral, human experimentation - although she really needs to get someone to look into why nothing happened about that, because that was just _wrong_ on so many levels - or doing his best to hurt Kara, or forcing her on that godawful sham of a date - there had barely been any food on the plates! What kind of dinner didn't have food? - or invading her privacy, or being a smarmy little git, but because he messed with her coffee. And, to add insult to the injury already sustained, didn't even tie her legs to the chair he abandoned her in after having her carted away to yet another of National City's warehouses. Like she was something he could put away until he had time for her. Like she was someone who had time for him.

What kind of amateur does he think she _is_?

* * *

J'onn intercepts her halfway to LordTec's HQ, broken pieces of detonator in his hand, and calmly diverts her to the nearest coffee shop while NCPD's finest go screaming past. While he has - and still does, whenever the occasion calls for it - entertained some less than savory thoughts towards Mr. Lord's general welfare, the matter is clearly well in hand, and Alex getting herself thrown into a cell again would be ... ill advised given her second most recent kidnapping. Besides, they'd picked up her breakfast muffin in the alleyway by the shop with the teller she still hadn;t picked up was flirting with her. She could do with a bite to eat.


	15. Gen - Cats Have Staff

**Title:** cats have staff

**Prompt:** Weak

Kara has arms. Lucy is nothing but weak. The rest of CatCo isn't far behind. Cat considers making a national holiday.

* * *

There are two pieces of information relevant to the current situation at CatCo Worldwide Media that are nothing less than factual; Kara Danvers has arms, and Lucy has the opportunity to show off those arms to great effect. (And general rejoicing, with minimal pouting that can be gotten rid of completely with a few potstickers a day.) Is there a single universe in which that combination could possibly hope to be resisted?

Self control is usually a trait Lucy prides herself on, but then again she _has_ left the army, and doesn't usually win bets that give her the opportunity to dress Kara 'Sunny Arms' Danvers for a week, with full access to the Fashion department's resources. The way talk around the water cooler goes she isn't all too surprised when she gets pretty much the entire department along with the clothes. Kara is almost universally loved – save for one pidgin that Lucy's seen dive bombing her, but that was for hoarding food if she had to guess, and it seemed like a personal vendetta too, because none of the other birds mind her in the slightest – but from what Jane in accounting says about the changing room incident, she's also buff as hell, so helping Kara expand her wardrobe is going to do nothing but help her image. And the days of everyone who happens to work - or can make a convincing argument to that fact in the face of Cat Grant, if they don't - on the same floor as her. For a week.

Plus Lucy may, possibly, be feeling ever _slightly_ vindictive over the whole James situation. It's not Kara's fault – Kara's honestly been a sweetheart, despite her blindingly obvious crush – but the chance to play dress up, get a week full of eye candy and make the ex Lucy traveled across the country for uncomfortable on top of all that? Lucy's many things, but she's not a saint.

Productivity plummets across CatCo from day one, and Cat doesn't even seem to mind much beyond some pro formula yelling in meetings. Perhaps it may be more accurate for Lucy to say that Cat, like anyone with a good set of eyes, doesn't care about what Kara's wearing so much as she cares that people that she pays are allowing their work to slip because of what she's wearing, like anyone who has a functioning brain.

Lucy may have encouraged that attitude when she had Kara carrying stacks of documents for her bright and early in the ballpen, but Cat does have a well deserved reputation for not letting anyone change her mind if she doesn't want them to, so Lucy figures jobs were fairly safe. She still comes down like a tonne of bricks on the troublemakers the instant they look like they're even thinking of stepping out of line. She has people she actually likes working with here, and she'd like to keep them, idiots or not.

By the end of the week, and the parade of sleeveless shirts, vests, and on one memorable, memorable day that made Lucy forget no less than three common English words, a suit, she isn't completely blindsided when she comes across a private memo drafting the creation of a CatCo award for services to humanity in her inbox. Surprised yes, but not shocked. Lucy learned within her first week that Cat does not ask the impossible or ridiculous, not of Legal. Or rather, that she does, but expects people who both managed to become lawyers and even more impressively, employed by CatCo, to be able to work out sarcasm when it's aimed in their general direction. It's probably meant to be deleted after she finishes reading. She prints it off and frames it.


	16. Gen - Too Good To Be True

**Title:** too good to be true

**Prompt:** Angular

Lillian and Rhea are rivals in the classy way only the two of them can be. Lena is their only point of common interest. Their only point of common interest that they _won't_ default to fighting over, immediately at least.

* * *

There are very few things Lillian will lower herself to concurring with an alien about, especially one with the not so explicitly stated aim of conquering her home planet. There are even less that Queen Rhea of Daxam would willingly share with the uncultured human occupants of this planet. And one that has the sheer nerve to think of herself as Rhea's equal, at that.

Much as they think her intentions are, quite frankly, idealistic, Rhea and Lillian have to concur that Lena is a precious resource, a treasure not to be parted from or surrendered lightly. Their angle of approach may thereafter diverge but that core they hold in common. That is also where their agreement ends, because neither are willing to share what is theirs.

(Except, perhaps, their disappointment in their sons. They'd had such promise, such prospects, and yet showed nothing in return for all the resources their parents had spent years ploughing in. It was frankly staggering. Perhaps it was an inherent weakness of the male condition, perhaps not, but enough of a common ground existed that the thought of talking to each other is not quite enough to send them running for a physician.)

They are both quietly and utterly certain that they could defeat the other, especially in this particular arena, but winning Lena, slipping her out from the others grasp in such a way that the other, their almost worthy rival, would have no other option but to concede - that would be sweeter still. Both consider their ability to do so beyond question, of course, there's no sense playing games that they might actually lose. But winning is winning, and a half decent rival is a rare find.

Given the . . . unusual nature of the situation, their various exotic and otherwise overpowered pieces of weaponry are left on the sidelines as they begin their first round of inevitable betrayal after Lena's successful procurement and the subsequent cleanup of various proxies. They can and will escalate to violence, but to begin with, well, they can be so much more elegant. Subtle. Deadly.

Lena unties herself and sneaks out under the cover of their arguing, using the oddly angled edges of the . . . chair? It does look a bit like a modern, more money than sense take on a chair, the sort that's geared towards people who don't particularly have to sit and Lillian would sooner have burnt than in a house she owns – to get the leverage she needs on the knots. It's solid piece of work, whatever it's meant to be, and her escape is silent enough to be lost in the bickering and ... creatively atmospheric lighting.

She's not sure to be pleased or disturbed at this development, so she settles on a good double handful of both as she works her way outwards. Supergirl is sure to be close at hand, but it's better not to be caught between a super and whatever weapons her kidnappers are packing. Or Rhea and a hard surface. She isn't sure what kind of alien her - former, definitely former - business partner is, but she bares more than a passing resemblance to both supers that the world knows exist.

On the one hand, they're both megolmaniacical egoists who think nothing of using people as mere means to whatever end they think requires. They thrive in secrecy, double talk and backstabbing. On the other hand, they both think she is important enough to fight over which is _not_ an ego boost, she knows exactly how much she is worth, but still.

Two people who can probably buy the country - or at least its government, which is functionally the same thing - think she's worth that much.

Or that she is something worth possessing, at least. She's careful not to give too much credit.

And, honestly, there was a time when she was desperate for their approval – still would like it, to be sure, if they'd stop the whole constant planning for world domination – but Lena is smart, and a decent person, and is more than just a possession to be collected and moulded and used to – _well_.

Damn.

Her therapist is going to be so. Damn. Smug.


	17. AstraAlexReign - (Anything You Want)

**Title:** (anything you want)

**Prompt:** Swollen

**Pairing:** Astra/Alex/Reign

Alex is, historically, bad at admitting that she gets hurt.

* * *

Alex, a moral competing with titans, does not like to admit injury. It's not a new habit, far from it in fact – her tendency to bandage herself up was noted early on in her childhood and had formed a good part of her parent's expectations that she'd grow up to become a doctor. Which she did, because she is bad at disappointing her parents, never mind how much it might hurt her in the process. It's what made her push through twelve hour days to finish her residency and follow it with

Sometimes she prides herself on it. (She loves to bring up the Hellgramite, is almost as likely to reference it in casual conversation as Astra is, but is slightly less likely to mention the stiffness and enforced bed rest that followed that particular incident. Or any of her kidnappings, really. Or that one time Reign snapped her femur when she was still in Sam's body.)

Alex likes it even less when the injury is from something simple like slipping on a loose piece of slate while rock-climbing during her one, enforced week of vacation this year, but has to admit having not one but two Kryptonians icing her knee is nice, especially when they alternate it with her knee and ... other places. It's a reminder of her mortality in a way that the rush of combat all too often isn't, and there is a part of her that shies away from the thought of being forced to leave them by her own inescapable frailty.

So she grumpily accepts their attention and her confinement to the couch with her every need catered for hand and foot because they _care_ and she's been getting in touch with her _feelings_ and she's not getting soft at all.

(She totally is.)


	18. AlexMaggie - Little Butterflies

**Title:** Little Butterflies

**Prompt:** Bottle

**Pairing:** Alex/Maggie

Alex and Maggie take a moment to explore other worlds while their parents are busy doing boring adult stuff.

* * *

The sun is just crossing the wide, unpaved street beside the road when Danvers and Sawyer walk into town. They're the biggest, baddest, fastest draws in the west, and they've come to do what they do best now that snack time is over and nap time is done and they're free to roam at last while their adults do boring adult stuff like talk about the weather.

Danvers is the deputy, and she is also a doctor, with a stethoscope and a big red medicine bag that she's filled with magic healing potions and bandages and stethescope, and Sawyer has a sheriffs badge that's shiny from the amount of times she's taken it out to show criminals when they're captured, 'cause wherever they go they catch loads and loads of criminals and her biggest red bandanna.

Even more important than shooting at bad guys is practicing their shooting on bottles when there are no baddies to shoot at, because the only thing badder than bad guys is shooting the good guys instead of them. And tongue-twisters. Tongue-twisters are the worst. 'Specially since Maggie lost one of her teeth in the playground.

The driveway to the town hall is newly laid. It has loads of small stones just the right size for shooting bottles with. Maggie collects the best into small piles while Alex clambers up on stacked cinder-blocks to get at where the old bottles are kept for recycling.

Their parents come rushing outside at the crash of glass, and then there's enough shouting for a whole bunch of outlaws _and_ cowboys and they're bundled back indoors without even getting to see how many they smashed.


	19. Gen - Disco Inferno

**Title:** disco inferno (I am therefore I burn)

**Prompt:** Scorched

There is a saying at the DEO: _if it's going to happen, it's going to happen to Danvers_. AKA One of the first (preliminary) bits of paperwork created in response to yet another of Agent Danvers' escapades.

* * *

Mission report (preliminary pursuant to debrief of participants): course of events began with unscheduled offworld trip by resident DEO danger magnet. **[DEO Operatives - Danvers, A]** Following investigations, _**{Bribe Pam to Retcon necessary permissions}**_ Agent Danvers was rediscovered on a space station/orbital barge orbiting the endpoint of original transit site, **_{Cross ref with F.R. databanks}_ [Temp ID - Arrakis]** competing in gladiator style melee arena. Danvers assisted in overpowering local resistance but was knocked unconscious before retrieval team was able gain control of the situation. The presumed ringleaders were remanded in custody while statements were taken from the fighters. Further captives were discovered in cells within the station. Alpha and Delta teams returned to Earth with Danvers's med-evac following Green Lantern arrival. **[Non-hostile Non-affiliate Organisations - Green Lantern Corps]**

Beta team maintains DEO control of the station while Gamma team remains dirtside. Reinforcements and relief to cycle in.

Recommend that the nerd squad investigate transport system and habitat propulsion.

Further details when Agent Danvers is available to give a timeline of events.

Keywords: Danvers, Abduction, Technology Source, Lantern, Prelim

Associated: Green Lanterns, Agent Danvers, Department of Extra-normal Operations National City Retrieval Team Beta, Department of Extra-normal Operations National City Strike Team Alpha, Department of Extra-normal Operations National City Strike Team Gamma, Department of Extra-normal Operations National City Strike Team Delta, Unclassified Extra-terrestrial Hostile Organization

[Attachment] Medical Note (preliminary, do not attach to permanent record): _Sunburn. Sunburn everywhere. All personal who operated on planet require treatment. Recommend Danvers not move unnecessarily for a minimum of three days following discharge by a medical professional other than Dr Danvers. Add tubs of aloe vera to Danvers budget._


	20. CatAstra - Sophistication Minus

**Title:** sophistication minus civilization

**Prompt:** Breakable

**Pairing:** Cat/Astra

Astra has lived under a yellow sun for over a decade. For all that she controls her strength, the world she inhabits remains a fragile place.

* * *

Astra is ... nervous. Understandably so. A thousand wars won against an enemy means nothing when a single battle is lost against the self. And as this moment stretches into the infinite blue she is terrified of her own weakness.

And her strength, a strength unmatched by any of this world. A strength that could crush rocks as easily as it could crush bones.

In the past, it hadn't worried her. She hadn't needed to do much touching, with Myriad, and what little was called for was born of violence. But now ...

How would Cat react if she knew Astra had hurt one of her relatives? And yet she fears harm is an inevitable outcome of their interaction. She can, and has, handled humans. But this creature, this … _being_ ... it's so small. Too small. Far too small.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the kitten emerges and approaches her outstretched hand, to inspect and consider the lickability of an outstretched finger, then climbs up the length of her (very still) arm and settles under her hair.

Astra relaxes.


	21. KaraCat - Set the World on Fire

**Title:** Set the World on Fire

**Prompt:** Drain

**Pairing:** Kara/Cat

Kara is the one thing that stops CatCo's shareholders from utterly draining Cat's will to live.

* * *

As undisputed Queen of All Media, Cat has very few tethers to the mundane world beyond her son. A multitude of contacts certainly, but those are not the same as having connections. Money has a way of reducing meaningful contacts, and power even more so. Combine money, power and her unfortunate decision to be born female and look good doing it, and it's a wonder she has any more human contact than an inmate in an isolation ward.

Kara is a very rare exception to that.

Kara is also , now that Carter is off gallivanting in the cesspool that is higher education, the one thing that stops this board-meeting from completely sapping her will to live. Cat's anticipation for the no doubt ridiculously unhealthy surprise planned for her return from Tartaras, as looked forward to as it is, is barely enough to stop her from over correcting and killing one of the shareholders who seem to think that generating income from other peoples labour is the same thing as knowing how to do her job.

How is it that, despite a painstakingly crafted reputation as a woman at the head of her field, her board has yet to be free of the type of old white men who think that wearing a suit is all it takes to be able to push her around? It has been years since her return from Office - and the time away with Olivia had been just what she needed to see what was in front of her - and yet they persist in thinking that she has somehow started slipping. Ridiculous.

Decapitation – or disembowelment, she has quite enjoyed the rumours that imply she can flay an unwary subordinate at ten paces - is getting more tempting by the second. Even if she did, her Legal department has been having it easy for too long. The Better Lane had the time to pick up a second job, for heaven's sake. They could use the workout. Probably needed it, in fact. But then she'd be in prison while they got their act together. The length of time, however brief her stay would inevitably prove to be, was immaterial. Germs multiplied exponentially, after all, even in sanitary conditions.

Or worse, there are the scenarios where Kara objects. She might even try to take over the world, _again_, and even just thinking of the effort putting a positive spin on that would require is enough to make her current headache seem minuscule.

No, there's no choice, self control is the better – and only - option. She only has to last another thirty minute, and she's home free.


	22. KaraLena - Hunger

**Title:** Hunger

**Prompt:** Expensive

**Pairing:** Kara/Lena

A Luthor is allowed to have appetites. A Luthor is not allowed to be needy. All Jess, Luthor Assistant, wants is for her boss to stop pining like a useless lesbian.

* * *

Lena is financially affluent, comfortably able to live beyond the means of ninety percent of the world's population; in as few words as humanly possible she is rich, and has been for just slightly less long than she can reliably remember. It doesn't make up for the rest of her life over that span, but money has never been an issue, except exactly once in the academic sense, and even there her economics professor soon saw the error of his ways. Surviving Lillian's dubious care required both the ability and willingness to fight dirty, and by the time she hit college at sixteen it was as natural to her as breathing.

Lena is also generous, perhaps because of her wealth. Perhaps not. Her generousness manifests both with charitable causes – the Children's Hospital is practically hers, at this point – and her friends. For a long time, the second was yet another purely academic concept, until Kara burst into her live like a particularly bouncy ray of sunshine. Even with Kara alone to spend on, the food bill is quite something. Kara has yet to get Lena to the gym with her, but she burns calories and, based on the way she keeps trying to get her to eat, has for long enough that she's forgotten what normal eating habits look like.

Lena has a long suffering assistant (barely retained through what must be heading towards the area of legally grey bribes at this point, not that Jess is doing more than pro-formula complaining - she has extended family to put through college) who has to deal with L-Corp acquiring three restaurants overnight on top of the pre-existing stress of blocking out Lena's lunch hour for a surprise drop in. It could've been a simple, scheduled lunch date if she – Lena, Kara, either or both, Jess honestly doesn't care at this point - had just sally'd up and asked, but _noooo,_ Jess has to put up with thirsty lesbian shenanigans. At least the cafeteria food will have no choice but to improve.


	23. AlexMaggie - The Bringing of the Line

**Title:** the bringing of the line

**Prompt:** Muddy

**Pairing:** Alex/Maggie

Det. Maggie Sawyer is not a corrupt cop.

* * *

Maggie is a NCPD officer, a detective in the Science 'X-files 51' Division, dating a blacker than black ops Special Doctor Agent. She hangs out with anything from one to a couple of vigilantes, depending on the week and dimensional location, and despairs over the dietary habits of far more. She can remember the last time that number was zero, and it was her third week in Gotham. She's well and truly used to operating in murky waters. Hell, she even has to wade through them in her own damn precinct, if at a much lower visibility than what passed for normal in Gotham.

The speed she can rustle up fake documentation for alien families fleeing (some disaster, war or other form of threat, on top of Earth's population,) is both gratifying and a touch worrying for someone who prides herself on being a straight cop.

…Now she has to go buy a unicorn frappacino just to get over calling herself straight, and it'll have been a supremely productive week all round. The way things are going, she might even snag her first pool win over Alex, and all the bragging rights that go with it, too. Life, as they say, is good.


	24. Gen - The Cake Is Real

**Title:** The Cake is Real But Slightly Delayed

**Prompt:** Chop

**Pairing:** Kara/Cat

Cat's son is autistic. She knows what to look for, when she sees it, and how not to be a completely terrible person.

* * *

"Chop what, Miss Grant? Only, you see, cake isn't – you don't chop cake? Unless you want me to, I mean – if you want – "

Cat finally breaks off her stare before Kara gets into full ramble mode. The last time that had happened, she'd found herself with encyclopedic knowledge of her barista's romantic troubles. She's all for paying attention to detail, but coffee should just be coffee, not a barometer of someone she's never met. It's another check in the 'is Kara on the Spectrum' column. She's accumulating quite a total there.

It's also a whole bunch of checkmarks in the over familiarity box of the _get rid of asap_ column, but Cat's known that since Kara ended her interview with a hug. She hired her regardless, obviously. Besides, the girl's too damn good at keeping her week hassle free to let her get away. Besides, Carter likes her, and if that's not a recommendation Cat doesn't know what is.

"My son will be the one slicing the cake, Keira, and I for one would like to be eating this side of the century. Chop chop. That's all."


	25. Gen - The Ghost, The Game

**Title:** The Ghost, the Game, the Stadium

**Prompt:** Prickly

The DEO goes green.

* * *

_DEO workplace improvement strategy num. 342: the addition of greenery to high traffic areas. Foliage has been shown to correlate to improved mood (see papers by Pretty, Peacock and Hine, and the in-house cliff notes on that one species of alien plant Danvers tamed) and could serve as a secondary source of oxygen and bio-matter in case of a level 5 lockdown or above._

_Submitted: __Agent Vasquez_

_Approved for trial: __Director Lane_

* * *

Their first attempts at implementation of Improvement Strategy Number 342, a mixture of miniature trees and palm fronds along the corridor to the cafeteria, are in place for two days before an interrupted prisoner transfer and the discharge of experimental pulse weaponry (for once, not by Danvers, but that's only because she's been spending most of her time at the fancy new base in the city) decimates them and their carefully painted pots.

On the second go round, Lucy picks out the plants on a rare day off in the city. She makes sure to include varieties with sap they can drink, and in extreme situations eat, in the eventuality of extended lockdown, because she's practical, and several small potted cacti that are just the right size for use as projectiles, because she had bits of leaf stuck in her hair for over two hours last time when she was caught without a weapon.

Then she puts the fear of herself into the transfer teams and steals the runt of the litter for her office.


	26. AlexAstra - New Dawn New Day New

**Title:** New Dawn/New Day/New Life

**Prompt:** Stretch

**Pairing:** Alex/Astra

There is much Astra must grow familiar with, now that she has cast her lot with the people of Earth.

* * *

The duties of a general involve a degree of mental flexibility, and the operational requirements of a vigilante at an uneasy peace with what few laws apply require even more so. Astra considers herself well equipped for both occupations.

Even so, the humans must have very flexible interpretations of their own concepts; because she is unsure how their extend stay at a tropical vacation resort qualifies as a reconnaissance mission.

She will, in the sanctity of her own mind, admit that the hours spent basking in direct sunlight are certainly not unpleasant, even if sand is just as pervasive on Earth as it was in the deserts of Arrakis's fifth moon.

Now all she has to do is figure out how yoga is to be conducted without the use of flight and she will consider the time spent a productive glimpse of human recreational activities regardless of the status of the DEO's objective.

Her educational efforts are stymied by an observation. Alex appears to becoming ill. Astra has noticed her flushed appearance on several occasions over the last handful of days, and she has a dreadful coughing fits as she emerges late in the morning. Perhaps some freshly squeezed orange juice is in order before her condition worsens. She has seen several stalls selling the fruit during her early morning circuit, and sunlight has proven to have curative properties, even for humans, so a joint venture would not go amiss. Alexandra has remained cloistered for far too long with her surveillance equipment. With her mind settled on the matter, Astra transitions out of downward facing dog into a low lunge and from there to her feet. There's no time to waste.


	27. AlexAstra - On the Edge Of

**Title:** on the edge of the night

**Prompt:** Thunder

**Pairing:** Alex/Astra

Norse/Viking AU. Alex meets with the god of thunder.

* * *

Alex is not a woman of narrow horizons. She climbs the great hill behind the longhouse early each morning with her herd and sings the songs that draw the sun over the edge of Midgard. She has traveled the great trading routes with her father, and even now is training as sheildmaiden with the lord of the hall. She knows the Eddas nearly as well as the bard, and more tales besides. Which is why she is surprised when Thor herself drops from the sky to stand before her with a crack of thunder that shakes the sod beneath their feet.

Thor is tall, taller than the biggest man of the village, and while her hair is black like the underside of storm clouds the strand that escapes its binding to fall before her eyes is paler than the lightning that chases her passage. Her clothes are strange, thin and brightly dyed with dark inks, and they glimmer like a candle under the eaves on a wet night.

She straightens from her crouch and turns to regard Alex as one might approach a skittish hen with eggs to hide. Alex feels her feathers fluff up at the - threat? Nonthreat? Alex's lack of threat? – assessment that it implies.

In the midst of their watchful stillness, one of the goats wanders over to investigate the stranger and starts eating the edge of her cloak. Thor notices the creature and is instantly besotted. Alex allows her tension to fade away at her response. No one who reacts without threat to Tirfaoithonn's antics is dangerous to her, Aesir or no. She's as good as a cat for that, and gives milk besides.

"Well met."

"Well met indeed."

The words start to come easier, once she knows the role she needs to play. "Good health to you and yours. Be welcomed here in this ... field."

Thor accepts her welcome, unusual and ill provisioned as it may be, with all the grace of royalty and the goats are left to fend for themselves as they settle against a sun-warmed rock. Tirfaoithonn follows, attached and dragged along by the teeth.

As Thor tells her tale, she is bound in pursuit of a quest, searching for a child of sunshine, Freya's daughter in truth, but since she is so clearly outmatched by her four-legged opponent, she sees nothing against the idea of stopping here awhile and sharing her repast with Alex.

Alex sees nothing wrong with that proposition, and quarters her apple in turn.


	28. CatLenaKara - Pictures In My Head

**Title:** pictures in my head I can't make go away

**Prompt:** Gift

**Pairing:** Cat/Kara/Lena

Jess kicks Lena out of her office, and into the orbit of a stunning new artist and their assistant, a blonde with breathtaking blue eyes.

* * *

Lena discovers her.

Jess is a lifeline as L-Corp (still publicly LexCorp, for now) transfers its operations to National City. It's a move Lena would've made sooner, if not for the company unexpectedly landing in her lap. She routinely operate far above her pay grade (which is also provisional, because Lena's got plans that not even the sudden responsibility for hundreds of livelihoods can change) but that give her the power to kick her out of the office for some fresh air.

She walks aimlessly until she comes across a gallery, its wide windows spilling a sea of light into the darkening street. She means to do nothing more than use the light to check her location and call her driver for transportation home, but she's caught by a painting in the window. It's a landscape, the intersection of cliff and breaking ocean in unearthly colours, the water visibly eating away at the stone. It's like something out of fantasy. Like the half remembered fragments of stories her mother used to send her to sleep with. Suddenly, she wants nothing more than to have that painting, she knows not where - in her bedroom? or in her office, where she is more often -

She enters the building like she owns it. Lena's got enough experience sneaking around to know that there are very few things that make someone more noticeable than trying to act sneaky. No one does more than glance at her entrance, too busy talking or looking at the paintings on display. The images are of a kind with the one she has intentions on, but Lena isn't prepared for the vulnerability of turning her back to the enterence and doing the same. Not so soon after Lex.

Once safely inside, she loses herself in the crowd. Not one single person recognises her. Being ignored, without malice aforethought is - it's liberating. She drinks three tiny glasses of not quite terrible wine and ends up in a corner, discussing the mythos of Lord of the Rings with a pretty blonde who runs off before telling her where she can buy the piece in the window.

She brings Cat with her the next evening she has – or rather is forced to accept is – free, which is a Saturday three days is increasingly little for Lena to do, with preparations for the renaming ceremony nearing completion and everything that follows on dependent on it. Jess is quick to take advantage of the limbo, almost as quick as Sam. Lena wonders if they have been in contact. Carter's with his father. Cat very pointedly does not drink.

The blonde – Kara – is there again. She's in charge of sales, a fact Cat manages to ferret out seconds after being introduced. Falls all over herself, several times very nearly literally, trying to apologize for leaving. They take a turn around the room when she's called away, place a bid, high enough to guarantee purchase on Lena's painting and no doubt keep the artist in canvas for the rest of the year, and wander deeper in when Cat is noticed. Lena once again passes under the radar, a fact she is more than grateful for.

The deeper they go, the sparser the paintings, until they come across a half hidden hallway of portraits. They're haunting, made unearthly by the dull red lighting. Not for sale, Kara says with an odd twist in her voice when she catches up to them, but they're welcome to view them for as long as the exhibition remains.

* * *

_A/N: This universe will be continued at some point, should the muse be favorable. Feel free to suggest names for the 'verse._


	29. AlexMaggie - Perils of Overpopulation

**Title:** The Perils of Overpopulation

**Prompt:** Double

**Pairing:** Alex/Maggie

Alex finds that Astra may (MAY) have had a point about the scarcity of earth's resources.

* * *

Since the In-Ze's entered Alex's life – and refused to leave, despite the better than adequate apartments that the DEO provided for them in the city free of charge - many things have doubled. Kara was quite the change enough, at the time, but her mother and aunt are even more so, and worse. Kara was a child, when she arrived, and Alex wasn't that much older. But she is now, and they are adults too. And yet they all seem to think that she's the most interesting thing since cheesy garlic toast.

She has to deal with double the body heat in bed at night and in Kryptonian cat-piles on the couch every Game Night and Movie Night and time she's caught off guard. It's alright in winter, more than alright, and does wonders for the heating bills. In summer it's a completely different question. Unless they pout. That's when having three superpowered aliens with the ability to breathe ice comes in handy. It's also quite useful around Christmas.

_More _than twice the times she catches herself being stared at like she personally invented interstellar travel and gets too flustered to function, which is fine in her apartment, or even when they're at National City's farmer's market, but it's happened far too many times at work too. Vasquez doesn't have to do more than _look_ at her these days, in the middle of what should be a perfectly normal and dry briefing, and Alex can tell they're laughing.

Worst of all, it means double or more than the usual amount of food that needs to be bought, prepared, hoarded and hidden, or else she has to deal with not one but three cranky kryptonians with low blood sugar. She even has to buy _vegetables_. Astra does her bit with the small garden growing on her windowsill, but still. Vegetables. It means a sub-zero amount of potstickers to herself, even when she plans ahead and orders four times her normal order.

* * *

Somehow, Maggie is the only one Alex can complain to. M'gann is a bartender, but she's also hanging around J'onn a lot these days. Lucy's still fighting the good fight in Dc, and Vasquez ... Vasquez is useless. She can keep a secret, but Alex's life's woes are not _funny._

She walks into the bar to find Alex already there, and halfway across the counter getting their first round of the evening besides. It's not a bad view.

"If that's not a double, I'm gonna be making trouble."

And she's threatening the barkeeper. This is their usual joint though, so all he does is roll his eyes at her over Alex's head.

Maggie's totally not boasting about being taller for once, nope, that's not her at all.

"Hey nerd. Do I have to rescue Pikkachu too?"


	30. KaraLena - Be The Overflow

**Title:** be the overflow

**Prompt:** Jolt

**Pairing:** Lena/Kara

Kara is magical, like Lena's dreams of finding her real family.

* * *

Lena can feel her heartbeat beneath her skin, jackrabbiting like it's trying to escape her rib-cage, rushing out through her veins and tingling in her fingertips.

It's only partly due to the fact that she is about to voluntarily run full speed into a brick wall - far from the worst thing she's done, it barely exists in the same category as cliff diving - and it has a _lot_ to do with who she's running into solid objects that really look quite impermeable _with_.

Kara has owned her, heart and soul, since the day they met, so Lena feels her heart, and she takes Kara's hand, and follows her through to Platform 9 ¾ and even more magic.

* * *

A/N: Shout out to Jennifer Baratta for the _multitude_ of reveiws.


	31. AlexMaggie - Wanna Be

**Title:** wanna be

**Prompt:** Slice

**Pairing:** Alex/Maggie

Alex is not insecure. She knows what she is. Or at least she did, until dimples and a smile and a '_You'd be surprised how many gay women I've heard that from_' turned her world on its head.

* * *

When Alex was three, she had one birthday cake, and it lasted her long enough that she had cake for lunch at school every day for a week. (She is convinced, deep in her soul, that she will never again be that popular. Even the intensity Kara loves food with doesn't quite encompass the spread and influence that one cake bought her. Children are simpler, less complicated, than most problems she has to solve these days.)

Trailing Maggie into the club feels a lot like her first time holding that cake in recess. It's dark and loud and busy enough inside that the two of them should slip right into the crowd, but it feels like all the eyes turn in their direction the minute they step through the door.

Alex has to fight back years of conflicting instincts – either to stand out, wrap herself in attention and deflect as if her life depended on it, or to slip into the shadows. This is _not_ hostile territory. But she's here with Maggie, and Maggie is honestly so great, how could anyone not want Maggie? She can feel the judgement. How did she, of all people, manage to convince Maggie that she was worth wanting to be around?

She follows Maggie numbly across the crowded floor, too lost in her mind to notice much as they move past the bar and into a shadowed corner just beyond the bathrooms. Maggie nodding and waving to seemingly everyone around them as they go. Alex is too busy chasing her thoughts round and round and round again to do more than avoid full on collisions. It's only Maggie forging ahead and clearing the way that keeps the number of shoulders she clips down so low. Not that Alex would mind. Maybe a good solid knock would clear her head so she can go back to enjoying being out with her girlfriend.

She nearly topples into Maggie's arms when she finally stops and turns, but then she's been falling for her every day since they met. Even if she hadn't realised it at first.

"Chin up Danvers, you're the star of the show." Maggie reads her doubt about that clear as day, huffs her amusement at the sight of her furrowed brow. Alex is adorable, much as it would pain her to admit it publicly. Maggie has plans to change that, plans that include this evenings outing. Plans that might be harmed if she lets Alex spiral.

For all that she is an unstoppably confident jugganought when her battles are fought for other people, the second it is her heart on the line she folds in on herself, so tight and twisted and small she cuts herself on her own jagged edges. Maggie loves every part of her, but with a little support, if she can keep those claws of hers in the right place ...

"Everyone knows _me_. I'm old news. You're fresh meat. I can see five girls here who'd kill to rock your world."

And there's the blush and splutter combo that hooked Maggie even as she was trying to let Alex go. _Adorable._

"No they're – you're making that up."

Maggie reaches up to cup the back of Alex's neck, drags her head down till they're eye to eye, foreheads touching. Alex, as usual, finds her brain flat lining at the casualness of the intimate touch. And yes, it's just her neck, it's not like that one time in high school with the jock – Josh? Jake? John? – who tried to get her to let him cop a feel, but it's high up, right at the base of her skull and tips of her fingers are playing with the short hairs and it's _Maggie_. Touching her. In public. In a gay bar. In a publicly gay bar. In ... it's hard to think, or remember why she's panicking when

Maggie reads her confusion as easily as she can suss out a crime scene.

"I mean it. You're like the top tier slice of the wedding cake. Top shelf. Everyone here can eat their heart out."

"Of my top shelf self?"

Maggie pulls back to look at her, hand sliding lower as she does, but her cheek dimples and Alex can't help but smile back.

"Not if I have anything to say about it, Danvers."


	32. PamVaz - Work While They

**Title:** work while they all play

**Summary:** Danvers is the catch-all excuse for non-standard paperwork. Vasquez is the one who files it.

**Pairing:** Pam from HR/Agent Vasquez

Another Pam from HR ficlet along the lines of _Two People Sitting Doing Nothing_ (chapter 2), this time with Agent Susan Vasquez. Sequel of sorts to _work done well_ (chapter 8). Not exactly written for Fictober, but its too small to get its own fic.

* * *

Pam is used to relative isolation from the organisation she works for. It's a perk of being in charge of paperwork. She likes it – paperwork has a logic to it that she knows like the back of her hand - she never misses out on a bonus - and no one goes out of their way to mess with her. Except Danvers.

She is prepared to admit that Agent Danvers' intent is not the production of new forms and protocols. But whenever things go wrong in strange and novel ways, like the sentient paint incident, it's always Danvers to blame.

Even when Agent Vasquez makes the trek down to HR, it's for Danvers. Pam likes Agent Vasquez. The equipment she uses is always returned in the same condition they were issued, she files her forms correctly and on time, and she never tries to live under her desk. Even her hair is both regulation short and aesthetically pleasing.

She's been coming down to the subbasement a lot, recently, and her excuses are getting progressively weaker.

Danvers calling dibs on alien tech and intimidating junior agents so they won't? Barely more noteworthy than agent Chou forgetting his gun.

A hydrokenetic detainee using their powers, not to escape, but to rust the locks on personal lockers shut? It's not exactly noteworthy, save that Danvers has a sample of alien food that technically, and most probably won't blow up, or negatively react with the contained air system of the locker, so boltcutters have already been employed, so this is more of a notification than a request for replacements of corridor C3b's contents. Pam doesn't know why she's surprised.

Vaz sneaking in with a cup of coffee hidden by her paperwork, mumbling about the level of noise in the situation room? That's definitely new. Adds a form to the stack for beverages where beverages should not be, but it's the prefilled in version with the blank of the date and agent and delete whichever is inappropriate. Pam's not above playing favourites. She just doesn't like to advertise who those favourites are.


End file.
